Kesha Releases New Anti-Gun Violence Song, ‘Safe’

In February the nation was rocked by the mass school shooting in Parkland, Florida that left 17 students and staff members from Stoneman Douglas High School dead. The tragedy of the shooting became a rallying cry for students across the country that enough was enough and gun control needed to be taken seriously by politicians, birthing the March For Our Lives movement.

Now, just weeks away from midterm elections and a chance to make an impactful change on the partisan divide in congress, Kesha has released a new collaborative ballad called “Safe,” which she wrote in the wake of Parkland.

The video for “Safe” works double duty: rife with iconography of the terror, memorials, and unhelpful calls for “thoughts and prayers” that accompany the far-too-frequent school shootings that happen in the United States, the video also uses visuals to implore citizens to vote for change next month. Banners calling for gun control laws are raised in an empty school hallway and frequently used phrases by pro-gun politicians and lobbyists hang in a high school gymnasium as news reports of gun violence play on televisions.

“I don’t want to be brave, I just want to be safe,” the song pleads, playing three times over the course of the video emblazoned with the message “the most dangerous cycle,” emphasizing the repetitive nature of these shootings and the inaction that follows.

“We are forced to lie to children because the truth is too nonsensical,” Kesha wrote in an op-ed for Teen Vogue accompanying the video's release. “The truth is that politicians seem to be too scared for their own jobs and donation sources to try to do anything significant to prevent these awful shootings from happening again.” Watch the emotional video for “Safe,” below.